CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER 3D brought to you by proud sponsor, Edward Snowden

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER is an utterly satisfying comic-book summer blockbuster but I wonder how certain members of the audience will view its earnest liberal political agenda.  Which is to say that I agree with absolutely everything this movie says about the trade-off between freedom and security, but even I found the messaging rather heavy-handed. So much so that this movie could've been sponsored by Wikileaks or the Edward Snowden defence fund.  That said, it's the most politically engaged, elegantly written Marvel movie, so I'm really not complaining.

As the movie opens we see the formerly cryogenically frozen super soldier Captain America unfrozen and working for SHIELD  As well as catching up on fifty years worth of pop culture, he's also struggling to reconcile his earnest no-nonsense good guy values with his current job enacting secret missions in a world without clear-cut enemies. His boss, Nick Fury, isn't helping by being all paranoid and on the verge of launching three super-fighters capable of taking out terrorist threats before they happen, with the co-operation of World Security Council chief Alexander Pierce.  But soon Fury is the subject of an assassination attempt, Captain America himself is under attack, and Hydra is rearing its many-heads once again.  His only allies are the newly contemplative Natasha Romanoff aka The Black Widow and the similarly earnest Sam Wilson aka The Falcon.

There's a lot to love here without the politics. The dialogue is smart, if not as constantly wise-cracking as an IRON MAN movie.  I love the genuine chemistry between Chris Evans' Steve Rogers and Scarlett Johansson's Natasha.  I love the elegant way in which the scriptwriters (Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely) give us the prequel backstory by way of a museum exhibit.   The plot has a pleasing complexity without seeming wilfully obscure, and it allows minor characters a chance to shine - not least Sebastian Stan in what could've been a thankless cameo role as The Winter Soldier but drips with melancholy.  I even love the behind the scenes stuff - particularly the subtle ageing make-up on Hayley Atwell's Peggy Carter, the gorgeous hand to hand combat choreography, and the cinematography from Trent Opaloch (DISTRICT 9) that's less than the motion sickness of Bourne but still engrossing enough to keep us on the edge of our seats. So kudos to the unlikely directors, the Russo brothers, for pulling it all together.

But this movie ultimately stands or falls on how you feel about its politics because, believe you me, this kind of earnest engagement with a highly contemporary issue is bold and brave, not least because of its ramifications for SHIELD within the real-life complex commercial universe that Marvel has established.  I love that beyond all the fighting this is ultimately a thoughtful, provocative and bold film - one that, like Captain America himself, has the courage of its convictions and a kind of audacity that is rare in a summer blockbuster.  That audacity caps itself off in the anti-casting of arch-liberal Robert Redford as a hawk, and the wonderfully subversive final scene involving Jenny Agutter.  We've come a long way from THE RAILWAY CHILDREN!

CAPTAIN AMERICA was a great summer blockbuster.  Its sequel is something more than that.  A great entertaining movie but one that also has the courage to pose serious questions about our world and doesn't patronise the audience with easy answers.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLIDER has a running time of 136 minutes and is rated PG-13 in the USA and 12A in the UK for infrequent moderate violence.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER is released this week in the USA, France, the UK, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, South Korea, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, Sweden, Argentina, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore and Spain. It is released on April 3rd in the UAE, Australia, Greece, Hong Kong, Macedonia, New Zealand, Russia and Thailand; on April 4th in Bulgaria, Canada, China, Estonia, India, Iceland, Lithuania, Mexico, Peru, Romania, the USA (wide release) and Vietnam; on April 9th in Serbia; on April 10th in Brazil, Hungary and Cambodia; on April 11th in Turkey; on April 19th in Japan.

THOR: THE DARK WORLD

Hi honey, I'm home! After nearly a month's movie detox after the BFI London Film Festival, I'm back with a review of what is arguably the final in the long tail of summer blockbusters or the first in the holiday season - THOR: THE DARK WORLD aka THOR 2.

I've always found Thor to be one of the least exciting of the Marvel heroes - a quite literally ham-fisted hammer-wielding macho god improbably in love with an earthling astrophysicist, Jane Foster.  British luvvie Kenneth Branagh got around this portentous Norse nonsense in the first movie by injecting a sense of knowing camp and kitsch that nicely balanced the over-designed mythical space-world of Asgard and the usual Marvel over-loud over-long effects-heavy action sequence.  As much as Kenneth Branagh - champion of Shakespeare - was a left-field choice for THOR, somehow it just worked. Whereas Alan Taylor - mostly a TV director who works on dark character-led dramas - The Sopranos, Mad Men, Game of Thrones - is also a left-field choice who kind of doesn't.  There's none of the kitsch comedy that Branagh brought to THOR in THE DARK WORLD, and the action sequences are dull, ill-conceived and just bizarre in their programming. But I wonder if the problem really lies in the script, penned by Marvel TV writer Chris Yost as well as Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (CAPTAIN AMERICA, which let's not forget benefited from the Joss Whedon running the slide rule over it.)

Their plot hinges on the conceit that the nine realms are about to enter a "convergence" - a planetary alignment that allows matter to pass between worlds or something.  An evil elf (I kid you not) plans to use some WMD called the Aether to cause interplanetary chaos at just this point. Problem is, that space-WMD has been magicked into Thor's girlfriend Jane, and when he takes her to Asgard for safe-keeping, the elves lay waste to his home planet.  He then teams up with his evil brother Loki to defeat the elf, which for reasons not entirely clear culminates in a huge battle in London complete with a seemingly mad Professor Selvig running around with no pants.

The problem with THOR: THE DARK WORLD is that Professor Selvig running round in his pants in pointless but also one of the funniest and most touching parts of the film.  Poor Natalie Portman has very little to do as Jane, basically fainting from the Aether and being rescued. Chris Hemsworth's Thor is all muscly and earnest but as little to do.  And you guessed it - Christopher Eccleston as the evil elf - is all heavy duty make-up, evil stare and, little to do.  The movie is hijacked  - thank the Norse gods - by the tricksy evil brother Loki played with delicious malevolent glee by Tom Hiddleston. He's the only actor given anything to get his teeth into, and is an absolutely magnetic presence - second only to Heath Ledger's Joker as the comic book evil villain par excellence. He injects the film with good humour, ambiguity and true charisma.  It's only a shame there isn't more of him.  I wanted more humour. I wanted more odd-couple comedy - more Thor getting jealous of Jane's human love interest - more of Thor getting on the Tube asking the way to Greenwich - but sadly this movie was too dark and gloomy and bang-shouty to let that in.

THOR: THE DARK WORLD is on release pretty much everywhere except Japan where it opens on February 1st 2014.

PAIN & GAIN

You can listen to a podcast review of this movie here, or subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews in iTunes.

It feels like we're in the midst of a run of movies about people whose sense of reality and entitlement is so out of whack that they they think they have the right to the fruits of the American Dream without, you know, actually working for it - people so ingrained with popular culture that their only frame of reference are movie heists and getaways.  In this latest instalment  we get Marky Mark and The Rock in PAIN & GAIN - a movie based on the true story of three bodybuilders who decided to kidnap, torture and extort one rich clients at their local gym. The selling point of the flick is meant to be the dark comedy of seeing these movie-obsessed idiots mess up again and again, and succeed - when they succeed - almost by accident.

Man, this movie started off so well - full of gonzo energy and whacky humour.  I loved Mark Wahlberg's intensity and his character Daniel Lugo's earnest stupidity.  And I thought this was arguably Dwayne Johnson's finest performance as the ex-con turned evangelical Christian turned reluctant kidnapper, Paul Doyle. I even liked the usually rather anonymous Anthony Mackie as their sidekick, Adrian Doorball, whose steroid abuse had led to impotence, but also his marriage to a naive nurse played by a more muted Rebel Wilson.  These guys had real camaraderie and were so incompetent I was willing them to succeed.  And of course, in real life as in the movie, they were counting on the straight up douchey-ness of their victim (Tony Shalhoub) to make sure the police wouldn't get involved.

But the movie goes downhill in its second halve.  As the body count ticks up our whacky kidnappers become less likeable and - a real problem for this film - the screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely - just can't sustain the hyper-ludicrous gonzo humour that this movie promised in its opening act.  Barring a truly surreal and memorable scene of the Rock barbecuing body parts while trying to chat up the neighbours, the second half was a real police procedural drag, that even Ed Harris' super-stylish private investigator couldn't save.  We needed to see more of the Rock - his transformation from evangelist to coke-head was superb - his best performance on record - and less of the procedural.  In general, this movie needed to get way more surreal - way more Nic Cage crazy.

So, a tale of two halves, but for all that, PAIN & GAIN is without doubt Michael Bay's best film since BAD BOYS. (Admittedly the benchmark isn't high.)  I far prefer Bay in his lower budget (I won't insult indie film-makers by saying low budget) movies, where he's more focussed on buddy-comedy and character than high-octane humourless misogynistic fare.  You can tell he's having fun with this flick. And kudos also to his cinematographer Ben Seresin (WORLD WAR Z) who uses a mix of DV and celluloid to create an amped-up hyper-colourful 1990s Miami, that takes us from the glossy mansions to derelict warehouses and manages to capture the coked-up craziness of a kidnap gone bad.  There's a particular sequence in a suburban home where his fluid style and use of body cameras is absolutely breathtaking. 

PAIN & GAIN has a running time of 129 minutes and is rated R in the USA and 15 in the UK.

PAIN & GAIN was released earlier this year in the USA, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Russia, USA, Canada, Croatia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Romania, Slovenia, Georgia, Mexico, Bosnia, Serbia, Iceland, Lithuania, Norway, Macedonia, Turkey and Italy. It opened earlier this month in Hungary, Singapore, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Austria, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands and Switzerland, Portugal, Thailand, Brazil and South Africa.  The movie opens on August 30th in Ireland, Poland, Spain and the UK; on September 5th in Denmark; on September 6th in Colombia, Panama and Taiwan; on September 11th in France; on September 12th in Chile and Peru; on September 13th in Cyprus and Sweden; and on September 19th in Argentina.

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER

THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER is the third installment of the Narnia franchise, based on the children's fantasy novels and Christian apologia by C.S.Lewis. It comes to our screen after a troubled birth. After the disappointing box office on PRINCE CASPIAN, Disney pulled out of funding, having tried unsuccessfully to restrict the budget to $100m. And presumably in order to boost sales, Walden Media retrofitted the movie with 3D, resulting in a picture that looks very handsome indeed when you take off your 3D glasses, but dim and murky with the glasses on. But for all that, I think THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER is a perfectly entertaining family film, especially if you are not wedded to the books.

As the movie opens, World War One has begun, and the elder Pevensie children are in America with their parents. (In other words, they are now too old to go to Narnia - the magical land where good fights evil amidst a mish-mash of ancient mythological creatures, talking animals and Celtic lore). This leaves the younger children, Lucy (Georgia Henley) and Edmund (Skander Keynes) stuck in Cambridge, living in the house of their beastly Cousin Eustace (THE SON OF RAMBOW's Will Poulter). Lucy is kicking against her youth, wanting to be as pretty and desired as her elder sister. Edmund is kicking against his youth too, hating a world in which he is no longer a king. And poor Eustace is kicking against his delusional cousins who keep going on about Narnia.

Five minutes later and we are back in Narnia, aboard the Dawn Treader - the finest ship in the Narnian fleet. Prince Caspian is now King and has pacified his lands. But he still needs to find the seven lost Lords of Narnia and, we are later told by a magician, lay their seven swords on the table of Aslan in order to vanquish an evil mist that tries to corrupt and tempt us. This forms the MacGuffin of the film - a driving reason for the characters to visit a number of strange and fantastical islands, to battle slave traders and sea serpents. The green mist also provides a number of moral challenges - offering Lucy beauty, Edmund the chance to emerge from his elder brother and Caspian's shadow, and tormenting Caspian with his father's disapproval. Poor Cousin Eustace doesn't even get the psychological treatment but is turned into a dragon in order to teach him humility and kindness! And so, after some rather fast-paced and random seeming island-hopping and pouting and moaning, everyone eventually emerges wiser and better at the End of the World with Aslan the Lion aka Jesus.  Lucy and Peter and Caspian have resisted temptation, Reepicheep has his final reward and Eustace has faith.

There's a lot to like here. Murkey 3D aside, the production design, costumes and visuals are handsome - the sunsets glint on the sea and the End of the World looks suitably magisterial and beautiful. The acting is first class. Georgia Henley is superb as wise, courageous Lucy, but Will Poulter absolutely steals the show as Cousin Eustace. And thank goodness poor Ben Barnes has been allowed to drop his Spanish accent! The only shame is that they couldn't get Eddie Izzard to reprise his role as Reepicheep - the valiant little mouse - especially as his story culminates in what should be a very moving scene - I certainly found it so, even with Simon Pegg's rather flat delivery. And, finally, there's enough action - dragons and sea serpents included - to keep little ADD minds constantly amused.

The negatives are twofold. For the "casual" viewer, the movement from island to island seems a little random and ill-developed. So too does the resentment of Edmund for Caspian, and Caspian's torment. We sort of get that they are being tormented by the green mist but it's never particularly well developed. For the "committed" viewer, who has read and loved the books, there is plenty to complain about. The introduction of the seven swords (horcrux like), the reduction of Lucy's character to teenage angst, the ease with which the dragon's bracelet is removed, the length of time for which Eustace remains a dragon, the fact that the sea serpent is now conjured by Edmund's imagination (Staypuft Marshmallow man!).....

These are all valid concerns, and THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER has more gaping holes than it should. But, as I said before, it's a perfectly enjoyable confection, and with Will Poulter as Eustace Scrubb, I certainly hope it does enough business for the studio to consider making THE SILVER CHAIR.

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER is on global release bar the Nordics, where it opens on Christmas Day, Argentina where it opens on January 6th, Venezuela where it opens on February 4th and Japan where it opens on February 25th.

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN - Sunday School goes Gossip Girl

It's hard for me to separate my critique of the NARNIA films from my dissatisfaction with the source material. I am an avid fan of Tolkien precisely because he eschews easy allegory and pays such close attention to the consistency of his fantasy world. Tolkien would never have put fauns and Father Christmas in the same imaginary space and he would never have used a device as obvious as Aslan. All of this I would overlook if the resulting films were well-made and captivating qua cinema. However, the first movie, THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, failed on this count. The technical aspects - shooting style, lighting, costumes - seemed amateurish and clunky.

PRINCE CASPIAN is far more satisfying than the first movie, but it's still far from perfect. The special effects, make-up, costumes and shooting style have improved, although key set-pieces still feel like weak versions of THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Take, for example, the scene where Aslan summons up a river storm to wash away the enemies of the Narnians. It is typical of the clunky imagery employed in PRINCE CASPIAN that the river takes the form of God as depicted in one of those Biblical Epics - an old white man with a beard. Compare this with the visual beauty and simplicity of Tolkien/Jackson's charging horses.

As for the plot, what we have here is basically one long battle. The four Pevensie children return to Narnia 1300 years after their original visit, to find their land over-run by Spanish-sounding men and Aslan a myth. They unite with their enemy's nephew, Prince Caspian, to reclaim his throne and an independent Narnia. Of course, they are only successful when they fight in the name of Aslan, rather than for themselves.

The battle scenes are fine, although I couldn't help wondering whether younger kids might get bored and/or frightened - especially by the first night-time raid in which half of the Narnian army is massacred. By far the bigger problem with the film is the emotional content. Peter has a clash of egos with Prince Caspian in which they both come off as whiny and there's a tremendously embarassing teen crush story-line between Caspian and Susan. Not sure if that's bad direction, script-writing or acting. Either way, it sorely undermines the serious dramatic content surrounding the children's loss of faith in Aslan and their temptation by the White Witch. It's rather hard to be swept up in a story about religious faith when the director keeps pulling you into Sweet Valley High.

PRINCE CASPIAN is already on release in Indonesia, Russia, India, Mexico, the USA, Japan, Singapore, Brazil, Poland, Egypt, the Philippines, Australia, Hong Kong, Israel, Argentina, Estonia, Iceland and Venezuela. It opens this weekend in France, Hungary and the UK. It opens on July 2nd in Belgium, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden. It opens on July 11th in Turkey; on July 17th in Portugal; on July 31st in Germany and on August 20th in Italy.